While most classic rock bands had one designated lead singer, a small handful recorded with two, three, or even four different members singing lead. The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac, and Eagles all did it, and so did Chicago. Most of the time, the songwriter sang lead on songs he wrote; however, occasionally the band would stage “sing-offs” to choose which vocalist sounded best on the song.
To my knowledge, most of those “sing-offs” weren’t recorded, and haven’t been released as alternate tracks – except for the two available versions of “Love Was New.”
The first version, the one that made the album, has songwriter Robert Lamm on lead vocals and a pleasant soft-rock brass arrangement by trumpeter Lee Loughnane. Laudir de Oliveira’s percussion is particularly evident on the “Time has a way of obscuring our memories” part (it’s not really a chorus, is it?) and someone, either on guitar or keys, is contributing a boing-boing electronic sound throughout the song.
The alternate version, a bonus selection on the Rhino re-master of 1978’s Hot Streets, features a double-tracked Donnie Dacus on lead vocals. He approaches the verses with a light, almost feminine voice that sounds like he’s singing in unison with Chaka Khan or Diana Ross. The band plays the song in a higher key than the Lamm version, and Phil Ramone changes the mix, putting more emphasis on Peter Cetera’s high bass notes and less on the percussion. While it’s not bad, I think they went with the right version on the final album.
Here’s hoping that more of these alternate versions of Chicago songs find their way out of the vaults soon …
